But his circumspection never forsook him. One would say, he had read
the inscription on the gates of Busyrane,--"Be bold;" and on the second
gate,--"Be bold, be bold and evermore be bold;" and then again he
paused well at the third gate,--"Be not too bold." His strength is
like the momentum of a falling planet; and his discretion, the return
of its due and perfect curve,--so excellent is his Greek love of
boundary, and his skill in definition. In reading logarithms, one is
not more secure, than in following Plato in his flights. Nothing can
be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are
playing in the sky. He has finished his thinking, before he brings it
to the reader; and he abounds in the surprises of a literary master.
He has that opulence which furnishes, at every turn, the precise weapon
he needs. As the rich man wears no more garments, drives no more horses,
sits in no more chambers, than the poor,--but has that one dress, or
equipage, or instrument, which is fit for the hour and the need; so
Plato, in his plenty, is never restricted, but has the fit word. There
is, indeed, no weapon in all the armory of wit which he did not possess
and use,--epic, analysis, mania, intuition, music, satire, and irony,
down to the customary and polite.
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